Springfield daily republic. [volume] (Springfield, O. [Ohio]) 1887-1888, 1887-03-21
JskNv JUNE.
She Wonders u Education Teaches ts
Anything After All.
LSpccial Cofrespolldence.l

Special Correspoidence.l
NEW YORK, March IA Does education
teach Us anvthingi l begin TO doubt it and
think 1t would at any rate be fair question
| for debating society Men and women learn
all sorts of thi igs nowadays, but they do not
seem 10 thnb of applying what they have
earned, or at least what they have been
taught, to the circumstances of every day life
We study equations and the calculus, but We
have not learned To number our houses 50
that they can be seen, even in broad daylight
We talk about ventilation, but We shut our
selves up IN furnace heated houses stove
heated rooms, cement cracks or crevices that
admit breath of fresh air. and discuss the
latest scientific Developments in sanitation in
rooms that are filled with atmospheric
malaria. Our street cars and public buildings
have still no means of changing the air or ad-
mtting it from outside but by opening win
dows and making a drauSht, which Is death
10 nervous and sensitive people.
The Nineteenth Century club of New York.
the latest exponent ard collective represen-
tative of modern thought and culture, asks
for evening dress uIon its cards of
invitation, from women, to whom evening
dress means the lowest of low necked bodices
and no sleeves at all This in public art
gallery where the meetings are held, which
will hold 400 or 500 people. and where tine
only means of ventilation which has ever
been tried Is that of laboriously and with much
noise opening great sliding windows, which
pour in a perfect blast, and are then as labori-
ously ground back into place, and the room
again made a hermetically sealed can 1t is
said that one lady is dying of pneumonia
from these severe alternaticns, but more, one
would suppose, would die of asphyxia.
1t is curious, but there is great deal
of fact i'll imagination. | never go into "A
street car that l do not find its atmos-
phere bad that l want To get out
Of q quickly as possible. There
are ventilators. but not one is ever
opened. Twice every day / say To a con
ductor: Please open some of those ventilators,
the air in this car Is poisonous" He perhaps
opens one, or two-Senerally on the same
side-wth a jerk, and some rheumatic person
glares at me, but feel happy, all the same,
for know the air of that car will be better
when leave it than when entered it The
work of the imagination is seen in the con
vlction of the rheumatic individual that he is
suffering from that puriication of the air.
II he had not seen 1t, II a certain amount of
ventilation was effected a matter of course,
he would simply feel the beneficial effect Of it
and not dream of injury; but it is the revolu-
tionary aspect, the sight of fresh air, which
frightens him.
1t is hardly to he believed how many people
still sleep with their windows closed tightly,
and rendered even more deadly with weather
strips. They may read all the books on
santary science, attend courses of lectures on
hygiene, know Professor Huxley by heart
it does not make a particle of difference, they
stick to their habits and their traditions, in
spite of what they know.
If We are to look for education and its re-
suits anywhere outside academy walls, it
should lie i'll such well dressed ami refined
looking assemblages of people as are seen at
the Metropolitan opera house and the best
theatres. Yet the interruptions. the parade,
the talking, the laughter interpoated upon
the performance by ignorant idiots, who have
not brains enough TO understand the artistic
interest or sense TO appreciate the rights OF
others, are daily subjects of complaint, and
have become real dread to those who go
with a serious purpose. The well merited re
buke which came from Miss Genevieve Ward
10 theatre party who occupied stage box
during her engagement in Philadelphia
shows that other cities besides New York are
afflicted with this class OF illiteracy. Great
artists, accustomed IL respectful treatment,
and absorbed in their work. are startled from
it As by shock, or confused by the gigging
and irrelevant sounds which have nothing 10
do with the work in haRd. Miss Ward
stopped her speech while such an unseemly !
exhibition and disturbance was in progress, !
and, addressing herself to the 4eIinquents. /
said sweetly: Il am really afraid We are dis !
turbing you. Shall We go onf' A few such /
lessons might teach even ignorance itself /
but few artists have the presence |
of mind of this highly trained and expert |
enced actress. JENNY JUNE.